2011 Roll Call Of Good Reads

This is my second year of keeping compulsive track of what books I'm reading.  The first year it was a challenge, of sorts, from my husband: do I read 100 books a year?  Oh, yeah.  I so read 100 and then some.  I kept up the list for 2011 because I liked being able to re-read a book I loved without having to go insane trying to remember the title!

I read 131 books this year, with two half finished at the stroke of the New Year.  A few were real yawn fests, but others I really liked, and marked them with three stars.  I started the 2011 with the goal of reading mostly from my own shelves of books, but then I would hear about a good book, or read a review that sounded really interesting, and it was off to the library to place a new hold!  Yes, I am and will always be a huge fan of romance novels, but I do read other things, I swear.  I started my new year off with a stack of auto-biographies, and I still wish Rose Marie would have answered the question of why she wears that little black bow in her hair!

3. Hold the Roses
4. Brokeback Mountain
6. Dark Road To Darjeeling
7. The Shadow of the Lynx
12. Lets Take the Long Way Home
15. Cress Delahanty
16. You Caught Me Kissing
26. River Marked
35. Shadowfever
37. Dreams of a Dark Warrior
40. Call Me Irresistible
41. The Crimson Rooms
43. The Brides Farewell
46. Siege in the Sun
49. Sleep in the Woods
50. Hint Fiction (so good I read it twice)
52. What Angels Fear
54. Eternal Rider
55. The Peach Keeper
58. Kingdom of the Heart
60. When Gods Die
63. The Blue Cotton Gown
65. Why Mermaids Sing
68. Where Serpents Sleep
71. A Thousand Dogs
74. What Remains of Heaven
76. Where Shadows Dance
77. Hard Bitten
78. Magic Slays
79. The Well and the Mine
84. Pale Demon
87. The Mercy of Thin Air
95. Sweet Jiminy
97. The Many Sins of Lord Cameron
99. Heartless
100. North of Montana
105. Gone with a Handsomer Man
107. Fallen
108. Kiss of Snow
109. The Dark Enquiry
111. Dark Desires After Dark
112. When Beauty Tamed the Beast
114. Bossypants
115. Never A Gentleman
119. Kushiel's Dart
120. Kushiel's Chosen
124. What Alice Forgot
126. My World of Fairy Tales

I discovered a series by C.S. Harris, the Sebastian St. Cyr Mysteries, which I devoured until I came to the end....and now have to wait until March 2012 for the new one.  But my favorite book of this year, the only one I gave four stars to, was a book I read in January, at my daughters insistence.  I was half embarrassed that I, who love to read and actually owned this book, had never really read it.  For some time in my younger days, I was obsessed with Readers Digest Condensed books, and read it in that form, but really, a classic should be read in its original form.

I gave in to my daughter's pressure and read To Kill A Mockingbird, and knew that even though I was only at book 11 of the year, it would be the best book I read in 2011.  Possibly the best book I've ever read!  I want to thank my daughter for being so bossy.  In this, she was absolutely right.  I love, love, love this book!